Amber, on the wall
by perpetuity
Summary: "May not be the right choice, but it's one I make with no regrets. Commander." The final step in the famous underground thug's recruitment to the Survey Corps. Inspired by Audacity by Shoi.


"I believe I made this… offer one year ago. But I will say it again."

When the younger man, back to Erwin, gave the slightest turn of the head, Erwin continued.

"You have the choice to leave, if you wish."

Levi turned fully to face Erwin then, genuine surprise in his eyes.

"I cannot guarantee success tomorrow with absolute certainty. Given that the cost of failure is your life, it is only fair."

Levi laughed.

"Wouldn't that screw up your perfect record just a bit, commander, if the criminal just walked away when he was supposed to be in your charge?"

"I am willing to accept the consequences. Unlike you, I would not face the death sentence."

"I think you're just freaked by the possibility that you'll have to kill me yourself, old man, should the military pigs be unconvinced I'm sufficiently useful to be permitted death-by-Titan. In that case, you need not worry. You won't have to dirty your hands. I'll make a graceful exit for myself." _Like take a hostage and slice my way out._

"I'm serious, Levi. I'm willing to fight for your life tomorrow, but it must be your choice to place it in my hands."

Levi sat down, squinting thoughtfully at the horizon, visible from their location on the wall, where the sun was sinking. Amber light stained the sky and reflected in his eyes.

"If there is one thing I have learnt from the shit we've lived through in this past year, it's that there is no such thing as the right choice. Nothing is predictable."

He twitched his left arm, stretching the light bandaging.

Erwin, too, turned his gaze towards the blood red sun. That Levi still blamed him was, of course, entirely understandable. Jacob Ral had been… the more regrettable of the recent losses, if one could judge such a thing.

"I get that you fuck up, old man. But," Levi looked suddenly sidelong at Erwin, "you'll do you're best, tomorrow?"

Erwin nodded. Of course.

"Then I trust in your abilities, Erwin." Levi stood. "May not be the right choice, but it's one I make with no regrets. Commander."

A small thump as Levi's fist hit his chest.

Erwin did not look away from the horizon as the shorter man strode past him, towards the stairs that led down the wall.

The metallic clangs of grappling hooks sounded behind him. Levi had, of course, chosen to fly rather than walk.

Erwin's brow, permanently furrowed these days, relaxed, just slightly.

oOo

Levi sheathed his blade with a ringing clang. The jurors were utterly silent; one who appeared to be a military trainer gave a long, low whistle. Even the most pig-headed of them knew enough to know that they had just witnessed not merely a run through an obstacle course, but a performance of art.

He did not betray the smallest smirk even as he tapped his fist smartly against his chest in a final salute.

To one side, Erwin beckoned.

Levi manoeuvred to him, too pleased with himself at the moment, he would realize with disgust in retrospect, to notice that Erwin's expression had become curiously blank.

He was therefore caught entirely off guard when Erwin kicked his legs out from beneath him.

He struggled for a moment out of pure instinct before a hand fisted though his hair, and cold steel pressed against his jugular.

He froze. Above him, Erwin's face was as cold as stone as he held his blade to Levi's throat.

"Gentlemen, I am a man of my word. I promised you, one year ago, that should his skills fail to exceed your expectations, I would end his life myself. What is your decision, my lords?"

His voice was utterly flat.

Fear shot a burst of adrenaline into the base of Levi's spine as he realized that Erwin would do it. Right there, right then, he gambled for Levi's life, as coldly as a poker player gambled with his chips, and he could very well lose.

_The cost of failure, is your life._

"Gentlemen?" Erwin prompted, his gaze still fixed on the judges. Levi fumed with the helplessness. He was about to die and all he could see of his own executioner was the fucker's _chin_.

_Look at me, you fucker._

Levi jerked beneath the unyielding hold on his scalp, and felt the blade bite into his throat in response.

oOo

Erwin's gaze scanned the audience. The judge's eyebrows where raised; her lips pursed. Some of the jurors had paled as if the blade had been held to their necks instead. Some looked utterly indifferent. The military officer looked regretful, like a craftsman pained to see a fine piece of equipment going to waste.

He kept his own face quite blank, ignoring the warmth of the scalp in his hand, the certain knowledge that his blade must be drawing blood by now, the faint, adrenaline-charged tremors through the man whose life he held in his hands as he knelt helpless.

He focused on the jurors.

_Look at this. Look at this living, breathing, titan-killing machine. Can you really stand to see this perfection, this humming powerhouse, destroyed, drained of its life, right here, right now?_

They had to believe he would do it, was right on the brink of doing it.

"Gentlemen?" he said again, his voice not louder but more menacing, pressing harder still with the blade; Levi gave a small grunt of pain.

Some of the jurors cringed.

He did a head-count, swiftly. _Good. Very good._

The judge, eyebrows still disappearing into her hair, adjusted her eye-glasses, and spoke.

"_Hem _- all those in favor of the death sentence."

Two hands rose - three.

"And all those against."

A few hands rose - the vast majority abstained - but it was enough to decide Levi's fate.

The judge banged her gravel.

"It is decided. The defendant is released to the custody of the Survey Corps, his death sentence is retracted and his previous charges dropped, on account of exceptional talent with promising benefit to humanity. May you live up to your potential. Dismissed."

Erwin released Levi so abruptly the latter fell to the floor, cursing.

"Thank you, gentlemen." Erwin said shortly, sheathing his blade, and, jerking the younger man to his feet, began dragging him roughly out of the court room without another look back.

oOo

For a brief moment, Levi was tugged along by the elbow like an errant schoolboy. Then the thought_ get out of here before they change their minds_ came through, and he was half-jogging to match Erwin's pace. They left the court room shoulder to shoulder, leaving the doors swinging in their wake.

oOo

The entire ride back to the headquarters was in silence. Only when they arrived did Erwin finally speak.

"I apologize for what you had to endure in the courtroom today. I hope you understand."

(Years later, Erwin would make the same apology to another young man - just a snot-nosed boy, really - and Levi would briefly roll his eyes at the irony.)

"I get it," said Levi, wiping a finger across the thin cut at his throat, "you just wanted to get even, you shit-head. And scare the shit out of those pigs, of course. Tell me, how did the jurors react when they thought you were going to gut me, right there?"

"The plethora of colors that their faces took on was a sight to behold."

"A pity," Levi snorted, "that I couldn't watch."

He reached up suddenly and grabbed Erwin's collar. The latter made no move to stop him. For a pregnant moment the two men faced each other, eye-to-eye.

Then Levi's hand pulled away with a rustle of silk. In a few short, efficient movements he had tucked Erwin's plain white, court-room cravat around his own neck, neatly hiding the wound.

"Commander."

He gave Erwin a slightly mocking nod, and turned to leave.

"Levi."

Levi paused, half-turned.

"Congratulations, on becoming an official member of the Survey Corps."

Lifting a hand in weary acknowledgment, Levi continued on his way back to his quarters.

oOo

Many battles and many, many deaths later, Levi sat in the chair across Erwin's desk, watching the same amber glow at the horizon, the shade unchanged from that day, seemingly a lifetime ago.

"What would you have done, if they said no?" he asked, suddenly.

Erwin paused his writing, taking a moment to make sense of the non sequitur. Levi was prone to disconnected loquaciousness when he was shaken, though the man would never admit to it.

"You know, of course, that I strove, even then, to be a strategist. I could not afford to be hesitant, or sentimental. I had to make my best bet. And a good strategist would take his gains if he won, and cut his losses, if he lost."

Levi nodded, unconcerned. The answered did not surprise him; he had long made his peace with it.

"But I was not a good strategist, then."

Erwin looked up suddenly at the younger man before him, though the age difference was much less pronounced, now. The had both grown old, on the same battlefields.

"However more of use I could have been to humanity if I retained my commander's position, I confess I was improvising a fall-back plan along the lines of attempting to fight our way out with the judge as a hostage, like some short-sighted, red-necked thug."

This drew a short, sharp laugh from Levi.

"Erwin Smith. I've underestimated you."

Though his tone was mocking, there was a new light in Levi's eyes that had not been since the disastrous battle in the Forest of Giant Trees.

As quickly as his mirth came, it was gone. Levi's gaze fell to Erwin's shoulder.

"Too bad they didn't, then," he said, very quietly, as Erwin continued to work on his papers, his fountain pen clutched clumsily in his left hand.


End file.
